Skip Counting Teaching Resources

Explore printable skip counting worksheets and skip counting charts for your elementary classroom to help students understand number patterns and build a strong math foundation.

Created by teachers for teachers like you, every resource in this math teaching collection has been reviewed by the expert teacher team at Teach Starter to ensure it's ready for your lesson plan and your students. Aligned with both the Common Core and TEKS curriculum standards for math, each printable and digital resource has been carefully selected to be included in this collection.

Explore digital and printable resources designed around skip counting by 2, 5, 10 and more.

New to teaching this section of the math curriculum, or just looking for some fresh ideas for how to teach skip counting? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!

What Is Skip Counting? A Kid-Friendly Definition

Are you teaching students how to skip count and looking for a simple way to explain the concept? Here's a definition from our teacher team to help!

Skip counting is a method of counting that involves adding or subtracting a specific number other than 1 to or from the previous number in a list.

We call it skip counting because we skip' numbers in this math technique rather than naming off numbers one by one.

For example, when skip counting by 2s, you may start with 1, but you don't move on to 2. Instead, you move directly to 3, then 5, then 7, and so on. We are counting, but we are "skipping" over the numbers 2, 4, 6, and so on.

When skip counting, we can count by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, and so on. This counting method can start at 0 or 1 or further down the number line.

two worksheets featuring skip counting robots sit on a student's desk with colored pencils on top of them

How to Teach Skip Counting and Why It's Important

Skip counting may sound like it's meant to make math fun — and there's certainly fun to be had in the engaging activities our teacher team has created for your classroom! — but this skill plays an important role in building number sense and laying the groundwork for young students to be successful at multiplication later in elementary school.

The goal is to help students better understand the number system and how numbers relate to each other. By "skipping" the numbers, kids can grasp the concept of quantities increasing or decreasing by a constant value.

Skip counting is also crucial in helping students to recognize patterns in numbers and develop their fluency with numbers.

But how do you teach skip counting? Here are some of our teacher team's tips on how to teach skip counting:

Practice Skip Counting From Different Starting Points — You can skip count from 0, from 1, from 5, or just about anywhere. By starting at different points in the number line, students become more familiar with a variety of numbers and start to recognize patterns.
Count Backward and Forward — Counting isn't just a forward process. It can go backward, too!
Make It Fun — Practice skip counting regularly with your class using any of the fun skip counting activities created by our teacher team, from puzzles to scoot and counts. (Keep reading for ways to make this happen!)

Skip Counting Activities — Fun Ideas From Our Teacher Team

This collection is full of games, task cards and more to make skip counting fun, but we didn't stop there! Here are some fun ideas from our teacher team for teaching skip counting to inspire you!

Bring Out the Beach Ball — Play a game of pass the ball while students practice their skip counting. Assign one student to start, and hand them the beach ball. Provide them with a number and the multiple (for example, if you're practicing skip counting by 10s, you might start with 10). Students then pass the ball to one another, and the student with the ball must provide the next number in the sequence.
Play a Count on Circle Game — Have your students stand in a circle. Assign a student to start the game. Call out a number, then have students go around in the circle skip counting until everyone gets a chance.
Take Advantage of Your "Lost" Time — Lining students up to go to specials? Before you leave the classroom, you can practice skip counting — go down the line and have them skip count forward and backward.
Pop It — Grab a popping bubble toy to reinforce their skip counting skills! Students can push down on the bubbles by multiples.